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POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

It’s time to grab back the city from corporate interests and rebuild the Fortune Playhouse – not literally but in our imaginations; so that Finsbury, Cripplegate and the rest of EC1 becomes a place of play and creativity, somewhere that nourishes our community!

The Denizen & Life Within, A Rum Old Story

As Reclaim EC1 has already noted, Taylor Wimpey’s Denizen building takes branding inspiration in part from a cheap line of Levis jeans. That said, journalistic copy about a rum called Denizen also seems to have influenced the slogans being used to sell this as yet unbuilt monstrosity:

Back in the day, even clear rums had character…. So, an ingenious idea: bring back the old clear rum! And it has been done with Denizen (not to be confused with the jeans line, though I bet they would make a helluva pairing). Released just last year, Denizen is a magical blend of rums from Trinidad and Jamaica that create a full flavored rum that yes tastes like rum. The initial nose is sweet like the smell of fresh sugarcane (what a novel idea!), the color is clear, and holds well at 80 proof… Denizen is a blend of 5 rums from Trinidad that are aged up to five years then blended with fifteen rums from Jamaica by blenders in Amsterdam, who have been blending rums since 1723.

Denizen: Rum From Within by Chris Milligan, Forbes, 3 January 2012.

Among Taylor Wimpey’ s strap-lines for The Denizen is ‘discover the life within’ – which echoes the title of the Milligan piece quoted above. If anyone ever moves into this luxury apartment block it will be interesting to hear what they have to say about ‘life within’ Cripplegate Without, and right on the border with Islington.

Hoarding advertising The Denizen on the northern, Fann Street, boundary of the proposed site.

As noted in a post on our sister fiction blog The Denizen EC1, there is an ongoing problem with junkies taking dumps right by these as yet unbuilt luxury apartments (scroll down both this and the linked page to see images). The east facing Denizen flats will have a good view of the junkies who fix up in the bushes of Fortune Street Park; whereas those facing north will be able to watch the drug addicts who get their kicks in a phone box on the corner of Fann Street and Golden Lane, the junction at which proposed apartment block is to be located. Like the Fortune Street Park bushes, this corner has a persistent problem with human excrement in the form of junkie dumps.

Yesterday’s junkie dump close by The Denizen.

Wider view of yesterday’s junkie dump, the scaffolding in the background marks the boundary of where the north facing side of The Denizen will be, if it is ever built.

Moving on, since The Denizen is being marketed to property investors in Hong Kong among other places, some of those who buy into these as yet unbuilt ghost flats are likely to hail from that territory. The lack of democracy in the City of London will be familiar to them from Hong Kong. The local council here is positively feudal and is largely elected on a business vote (something long abolished in the rest of the UK, as we’ve pointed out before). Both Hong Kong and the City of London could do with a revived version of the ‘umbrella revolution’ associated with the Occupy Central democracy movement on Hong Kong Island. However it seems more likely that those buying into The Denizen off-plan will come to terms with ‘the life within’ by drinking several bottles of rum a day, rather than by participating in future Occupy London protests.

I'm inspired by sisterhood, Occupy London, home made clothes, valve amps, short books and long hair. I think big, work hard and value love. In my spare time I do origami and I've been learning Bulgarian for the last year.